'How to be green? Many people have asked us this important question. It's really very simple and requires no expert knowledge or complex skills. Here's the answer. Consume less. Share more. Enjoy life.' Penny Kemp and Derek Wall

15 Feb 2014

Verso have just published the
English translation of the French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser’s book On
the Reproduction of Capitalism.Althusser, who was the Marxist philosopher, in the late 1960s and early
1970s, is perhaps best known for his essay on Ideological and Repressive State
Apparatus. However his work on ISAs and RSAs was just a fragment of a much
larger book that was unseen in his lifetime.On the Reproduction of Capitalism, will change perspectives on
Althusser, as profoundly as the publication long after his death of Marx’s Grundrisse
or Paris Manuscripts, transformed understanding of Marx’s work.

Written in the immediate
aftermath of the 1968 French student rebellion, On the Reproduction of
Capitalism, is bathed in the glow of the Algerian uprising against France and
the Viet Cong’s battles against first the French and then the US forces.While it is written by a philosopher, whose
work rightly or wrongly is often viewed as opaque, it asks a simple question
and is directed not at philosophers but at workers and peasants fighting for
liberation.The question is as is
evident from the title, how does capitalism reproduce the conditions necessary
for its own existence.How does
capitalism mould us to serve a system which rests upon our exploitation?Althusser asked this question so as to
further the struggle to destroy capitalism and to produce a new social
system.Althusser was widely seen to
have been destroyed, both personally by severe mental illness and
politically/philosophically over thirty years ago, yet the text is fresh and
relevant to those of us who seek to challenge capitalism today.While On the Reproduction of Capitalism, is
both flawed and unfinished, I believe that it will, eventually, be referenced
as widely on the left as The Communist Manifesto, Fanon’s The Wretched of the
Earth or Lenin’s State and Revolution. Reading it is an unsettling experience,
it is a dangerous text, but lucid and relevant.

Althusser, born in 1918, was
originally a Catholic, imprisoned by the Nazi occupiers during the Second World
War, he became a Marxist.He joined the French
Communist Party and sought to fight a philosophical war, in his eyes, on behalf
of Marxism and the working class. He collaborated with close associates on
books such as Reading Capital, Lenin and Philosophy and For Marx.He was known as a structuralist, an
anti-humanist and anti-Hegelian thinker. He rejected the idea that humans have
an intrinsic unchanging essence, so felt that so called ‘humanist Marxist’
critiques in the 1950s and 1960s of Stalin, were inappropriate.He felt that we had no fixed identity and
humanism was anti-Marxist.He was seen
as a structuralist, arguing that underlying processes shaped society and human
subjectivity.He sought to understand
Marx’s work as a form of science, arguing that there was a break between the
works of the younger Marx, such as the Paris Manuscripts, and the mature Marx
who wrote Das Kapital.The younger Marx
was a Hegelian thinker, while the mature Marx rejected any idea of historical
‘stages’, historical inevitability or other Hegelian inspired ideas.

Cynics argued that he was a
Stalinist, in Britain his supporters like Paul Hirst were seen as preparing the
way for Tony Blair’s right wing New Labour project.Described as anti-humanist, hostile to the
study of history and opposing human freedom with his functionalist and
structuralist approach, Althusser was widely attacked in print by both former
students such as Jacques Rancière and other Marxists such as Britain’s E.P.
Thompson.

Plagued by severe mental illness
for much of his life, he killed his wife and was placed in an institution.His ideas, dominant at least on the French
Marxist left in the 1960s and 70s, were discarded.It is however clear that the thought of prominent
post Marxist, post modernist and post structuralist thinkers including his
friend Derrida, his former student Foucault and Laclau and Mouffe, were shaped
by much of his work.The tragedy of
Althusser was reinforced, when Nicos Poultzans, who applied his work to the
study of the state, committed suicide.Althusser
in works of biting self-criticism, attacked his own work and on his death in
1990 appeared likely to have disappeared other than as tragic and politically
bankrupt figure.

In the last decade or so, a new
Althusser has emerged, huge quantities of previously unpublished material has
appeared, showing that Althusser in his later work traced the origins of a new
materialism from Greek philosophers and Spinoza on to Marx.Althusser’s work on Machiavelli has also attracted the attention of many on the left and recently the
literary critic Warran Montag has produced an impressive reassessment of
Althusser’s work.

On the Reproduction of Capitalism
provides a new perspective on the old Althusser but rather than being a work of
philosophical or literary interest, is one that can inform struggles for
socialism in the 21st century.I

14 Feb 2014

Green Party response to floods, cut the carbon and implement the Pitt Review, no more Owen Patterson and no more building on flood plains!

The UK’s response to the flooding crisis must centre
on a long-term strategy to address climate change the Green Party says today, as
it recommends a series of ten measures to improve the country’s flood resilience
in future.

It says sustained political action on climate change
is crucial to reducing the risk of severe flooding happening again.

The Party is calling for Environment Secretary Owen
Paterson to be sacked and for the Prime Minister to remove Cabinet Ministers and
senior government officials who refuse to accept the scientific consensus on
climate change (1). The Met Office has said (2) all the evidence points to
climate change contributing to these extraordinary floods.

“It’s a crying shame more of the recommendations made by
the The Pitt Review into the 2007 floods (4) haven’t been taken seriously by
Labour, the Tories, and their Coalition government lackeys in the Lib Dem
Party. But it is not too late for action.”

Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP for Brighton
Pavilion, said:

“Across the country, homes and businesses are being
devastated by the floods, and our hearts go out to everyone whose life is being
turned upside down.Nature is giving us
another wake-up call.

“In addition to making sure everything possible
is done to help people affected by the immediate crisis, we need a credible
long term strategy to tackle the risk of flooding and extreme weather to
people's homes and liveilihoods in the futrue.”

The call to government urges ministers to adopt the
recommendations of a major independent cross sector coalition[1]for a Cabinet-level committee on infrastructure
and climate change resilience and a Royal Commission on the long-term impacts
of climate change on land.

The Green Party is also calling for all staff cuts at
the Environment Agency to be cancelled, planning rules to be strengthened to
prevent further development on flood plains, and for increased levels of
spending on flood defences to a level in line with expert recommendations from
the Environment Agency and the Climate Change Committee.

And it is supporting the call of campaigners for the billions of UK fossil fuel subsidies and
tax breaks to be used to help the victims of flooding[2].

“This redirection will address the underspend and
assist the victims of flooding, as well as putting a halt to public money
exacerbating the problem of climate change that is making the floods so much
worse”, noted Bennett.

BADRUL ALAM, President of Bangladesh Krishok Federation, the largest peasant federation in Bangladesh.

ASHOK KUMAR, researcher, socialist, and recently Labor Organizer for
the International Union League for Brand Responsibility in Bangalore,
India.

DEREK WALL, founder of the Ecosocialist International and Green Left, and International Coordinator of the Green Party.

Bangladesh is one of the areas of the world most vulnerable to climate
change, with sea levels rising faster than the global rate. Estimates
suggest that up to 20 million Bangladeshis in low-lying areas could lose
their homes by 2050.

Badrul Alam, was elected President of
Bangladesh Krishok Federation (BKF), the largest peasant federation in
Bangladesh. He has served on the international leadership of La Via
Campesina representing the BKF. He is also a leader of a revolutionary
socialist organisation in Bangladesh collaborating with the Fourth
International.

The BKF are heavily involved in campaigning
against climate change. They have organised a series of climate caravans
to take the message out to large numbers of people both across
Bangladesh itself and more widely to other parts of Asia.

Like
comrades in the Philippines, a central part of that work is the
promotion of food sovereignty as a sustainable alternative to
agribusiness - hence their relationship with Via Campesina, the
international peasants moverment.

They were also involved in
work around the Rana Plazza disaster - many of the super-exploited women
workers in Dhaka are climate refugees forced to leave the rural
villages from which they come by rising sea levels and salinification.

Frank is a father of two who has worked for Greenpeace in the UK and
Australia since 1989. His commitment to environmental activism is
tireless, and he has taken part in many Greenpeace campaigns over the
years. He was also one of the Arctic 30 who have just got back to the UK
after being locked up in Prison in Russia for a protest against the
destruction of the Arctic.Jane Burston (Centre for Carbon Measurement)

Green Party leader, Natalie Bennett, will today join protestors at
the Barton Moss site in Salford where IGas is carrying out exploratory
drilling for shale gas. She will be accompanied by Nigel Woodcock,
parliamentary candidate for next week's Wythenshawe and Sale East
by-election. Their visit follows the announcement of two new exploratory
drilling sites in the north west by energy company, Cuadrilla.
Natalie Bennett said: "The people at Barton Moss are on the frontline
in the campaign against fracking. Government ministers have a fervent
belief that fracking can solve all of our problems, from fuel poverty to
manufacturing decline, from energy security to unemployment. Lib Dem
Energy and Climate Secretary Ed Davey is hell-bent on supporting extreme
energy, boasting that he "loves" shale gas. But their fervour is
misguided - the evidence shows that fracking won't bring down energy
bills and is not a solution to climate change. Rather than locking us
into a future of fossil fuel dependence the government should be
doubling its efforts to reduce energy use through home insulation and
supporting the creation of renewable, clean and safe energy.”
Nigel Woodcock said: "Local people are rightly concerned about the
impact that fracking will have. The same company that's drilling here at
Barton Moss, IGas, has a licence for exploratory drilling which covers
part of the Wythenshawe and Sale East constituency (1). Fracking is a
growing threat to communities right across Greater Manchester and the
north west."
Nigel continued: "The fact that so many ordinary people are willing
to take direct action against drilling in their community shows how
strongly they feel about shale gas extraction. Every other political
party is falling over themselves to support the big energy companies and
an expansion of shale gas drilling in the UK. I have tweeted my Labour
opponent in this election to ask him to sign a petition against fracking
in Trafford, but he has refused to respond. This leads me to conclude
that Mike Kane doesn’t care about fracking in Brooklands and Sale, where
iGAS has a licence to do exploratory drilling (PEDL: 193). (2)
He concluded “The Green Party represents those local people who want
to make a stand against fracking. I'd urge people to show their
opposition at the ballot box next week and in May's European elections."
Natalie Bennett and Nigel Woodcock are available for interview today
at the site from 2pm. For more information or to arrange an interview
please contact Alice Taylor, Media Officer for the North West Green
Party, on 07523 498970 or alice.taylor@greenparty.org.uk
Notes to editors:
1. http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/sn06073.pdf
2. https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-fracking-trafford. Tweets sent from @njw3000 on Jan 30th, Feb 4th and 6th.
3. Read more about the Green Party leader's stance on fracking here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/natalie-bennett/fracking-nightmare_b_3658736.html